Obituary of Florence Ellen Hopkins

We are going to have an AMAZING SEND-OFF FOR MOM!!!!!! Florence Ellen Hopkins - SongWriter Extraordinaire Alrighty! Her funeral will be at: Unity Church of Fort Worth, 5405 Woodway Dr., Fort Worth, 2:30 pm, Saturday, March 7, 2015. We will have Food, Slide show with her music off her CD's, A video of her live performances will be shown as well as members of the Cowtown Opry will be performing! Her burial will be on 1:30 pm Saturday, March 7, at Greenwood Memorial Cemetery on the corner of White Settelment and University. It should be a great musical send off with 86 balloons to give her a little more transendence! God bless you all and I hope you can make it! Physical address for the burial is: Greenwood Chapel 3100 White Settelment Rd Fort Worth, TX 76107. Florence Ellen Hopkins Born June 28, 1928, departed us on February 4th, 2015 Survived by Children, Johnny Hopkins & Carolyn Harmon, Grandchildren, Elise Hopkins & Lyrica Ray. A bio of Mom: She was born at a very early age in Chicago, Illinois-1928. Lol The Big Depression hadn't started yet…it was waiting for her. Mom"s dad was editor and chief of the Herald Examiner Hearst Newspaper and She had interesting memories of him talking about exploits of gangsters, celebrities and saints that were in the news and trying to stay in or out of it. The discussions around the dining room table were really something to look forward to. Being very young, She mostly listened, but took it all in. Her dad became manager of the radio station KYW in Chicago at that time. It was there She met famous people, movie stars, entertainers of that era, but it meant very little to her at that time cause She was about 4 yrs old. This bio is suppose to be about her, but her beginning experiences set the stage for interests that would play out throughout her life. From Chicago…her family moved to Corpus Christi in , (well shes not quite sure), Where her dad managed KWBU. There were lots of country stars she met there that had a lot of influence on her choice of song material to write. She graduated from Corpus Christi High School and went to Del Mar College after that. She was on the school newspaper as poet Lauriette. She sung on radio shows performing stuff She had written even back then. In the 1940's her family moved to Fort Worth, TX. She had fun being on T.V. where back then you had to wear blue instead of white, and Florence had to use brown makeup. She did Hoffman Hayloft Shows with Pat Boone, She doubted if he'd remember her, but he made a lasting good impression. She did shows with many performers on WBAP Television such as the Jimmy Livingston Show. She also had a show called. " A Girl And Her Guitar" on radio station KCUL. Her kids, Johnny & Carolyn played and sang with her on gigs when they were young. Her son, Johnny played piano in many styles, ragtime, jazz, pop and classical. Carolyn would sing along too. Florence played guitar and really enjoyed Johnny backing her up with piano. It was a great time for her with her family. Sometimes the family played for food and tips, mostly we played for money. She also rebuilt pianos on the side and had a restoration shop on hemphill in Fort Worth. She also added " rinky tink" attachments to the center pedal or a lever under the keyboard of the piano to make this work… a techique which she sort of invented. This led her to selling rebuilt pianos to the places she played. This sort of made up for the low paying assignments. Eventually the kids school started interfering with our "Great Performances' so this allowed her to get back to my solo career. In telling her bio, couldn't supply all the correct dates of events in her life, she said because of her age, it all seemed to blend together. In her words she says, " I'm just me- the sum and total of good and bad, I sure would rather remember the good. I try to remember the bad stuff happened just to make me appreciate the good even more." Life was ruff but she many treasured moments tucked in. She always wanted you to tell her the kind of songs and poems you wanted like to hear, plus she could write you a personalized song in a drop of a hat! She loved to write songs and poetry from my inner soul, some with a serious message, but the weird and funny ones are what people seemed to like the most. She was making a musical, In hopes to finish this year, so perhaps someone will be able to take over and finish this endevour. She always said, "Let me put it this way- I might be 2 yrs older than dirt, but not when I'm behind my guitar singin" and watchin' the faces of the crowd, i receive a joy that is beyond words and if she could teach others to just live, love and learn music as a loving expression the world would be a better place.